Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 00049 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00049
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
July 25, 2024
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CLOSE UP in many lands. I believed that the film is a new art medium. Point 3. I had travelled extensively : Asia, Europe, and the United States. I therefore felt that I knew a little about the various audiences. Point 4. I had done a certain amount of successful journalistic work, w^hich is supposed to be the general path towards a screen career. Point 5. I knew that I possessed in an unusual degree a dramatic sense. My intense interest in the legitimate stage revealed th?.t. I also believed that I possessed a great deal of visual imagination. I mention these several points to make it clear that my interest in films was not a sudden snobbish or hysterical interest, but a real growing interest. So far so good. My first practical step, since I knevv not a single soul in this ''industry", was to goto the source of my inspiration. Paramount. In their New York office I attempted to see Mr. Owen Davis. Of course, he w^as too busy rehearsing a new play to ^ee me. However, I was able to see a ver}^ charming young woman who listened to me sympathetically, and after eloquently pleading my case I went away with a letter of introduction to the head man in the Hollywood studio. This was all I carried in my port-folio to influence "these great m.en of the Movie Industry". I will not write here of my trip to Los Angeles, of how I set out from New York with one hundred dollars in my pocket (over 3.000 miles), and a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov"' in my hand. The slow trek across the United States, with odd visits to local Movie houses to see what the "Hicks" w^ere really like (I saw Metropolis again in some small midAmerican 25